Dave Ellen was coaching in the Adam Taliaferro all-star football game several years ago with longtime Atlantic City coach Bobby Weiss, who was getting ready to resign after more than two decades at the helm.

“He kind of said he didn’t feel the same,” Ellen recalled. “He described (coaching) as if he was on a razor blade, he was on edge all the time before games (and that feeling had gone). … I kind of looked at him sideways. I’m like what do you mean? I was still fired up and full of it.”

He understands now.

Ellen, 53, stepped down as Bridgeton's football coach in January. Ellen went 111-97 in 20 seasons leading the program, winning a South Jersey Group 2 title in 1999.

“I think it’s time,” Ellen said. “I’ve had a feeling the past couple years, I’ve been going at it for a while. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling you get. Some of the other coaches were talking and it was a good run, we had a long time, fun, we had a great time coaching. … I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m getting older.”

“He’s just a special guy and I’m going to have a difficult time replacing him,” added athletic director Cyndy Wilks, who did her best to talk Ellen into staying. “I’m just trying to take it on the chin the best I can.”

Ellen started his coaching career as an assistant at Schalick for two years before joining the Bridgeton staff in 1988.

“I’m just kind of looking to the future, retiring, that’s all,” said Ellen, who will remain a physical education teacher at the school. “It’s time for a new regime there. I can’t explain it more than that.”

While the sectional championship was the high point of his career, that’s not what he’ll remember most.

“I loved the preparation,” Ellen said. “My wife didn’t enjoy it as much because it’s really time intensive looking at film and the late practices and all that stuff, but I really enjoyed the grind part of football and the prep. Game time is definitely the payoff, but you don’t get that without the grind.”

Ellen also felt fortunate to work for two “great” athletic directors in Joe Blandino and Wilks, and with a litany of outstanding assistants like Joe Teklits, Danny Busnard, Terence Johnson, Warren DeShields and Ray Wilks, the latter two he coached.

“That’s a reward in itself that those kids come back to the city and contribute and feel you had something to do with it,” Ellen said.

DeShields and Ray Wilks also stepped down with Ellen, according to Cyndy Wilks.

“We built a lot of boys into men,” said DeShields, who resigned because his jobs as Bridgeton Director of Food Service and President of the New Jersey School Nutrition Association were requiring too much time. “Guys come to us with not much skill or talent, and we not only make good football players out of them, we make good men out of them.”

“I was blessed coming in with the coaching staff I had ... they were awesome,” Cyndy Wilks added. “The way they would turn around 17 kids and make it to state semifinal football games is amazing to me and it’s going to take time to redevelop a new philosophy because you can’t replace Dave. You can’t continue what he was doing. It’s impossible. Someone has to come in and create his own journey.”

Ellen plans on keeping his door open to kids if they ever have questions, but he’s not expecting to get involved with the new staff.

“I would always defer to who’s in charge,” Ellen said. “I wouldn’t want that as a coach, someone looking over my shoulder.”

Instead, he plans to remember the good times, and there were many.

The Bulldogs, who went 5-5 in 2017, only had six sub-.500 seasons under Ellen, and just two in the past 12 years. They made the playoffs eight times over that stretch.

“I could reminisce about a ton of games, but it’s probably the reminiscing part that I like best,” Ellen said. “The great part of my day is going to the Wawa up town and running into ex-players and reminiscing. I go to pick up a coffee, plan on being in there two minutes and 45 minutes later I’m walking out of the place. To me that’s a great perk of the job and I think I’m still going to definitely reap those rewards.